Anonymous launches second round of attacks on North Korean websites

Anonymous found its way back to North Korea, less than two weeks after the "hactivist" group disrupted several of the country's social media accounts.

A warning shot was fired on 14 April, when the country's official @uriminzok Twitter account posted this message: "More of North Korean websites are in our hand. They will be brought down."

The group then boasted about its efforts, posting messages with the word "Hacked" and links to North Korean websites currently offline, including Uriminzokkiri.com, which Anonymous claimed to have hacked earlier this month, stealing more than 15,000 passwords. Sites minjok.com, jajusasang.com, and paekdu-hanna.com were also compromised; two are still inaccessible, offering only a timeout error, while jajusasang.com seems to be back up and running.

Meanwhile, a slew of doctored images mocking North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, as well as screenshots of the offline websites, were tweeted.

This move comes shortly after Anonymous hacked the country's Twitter and Flickr accounts, uploading images like a fake "Wanted" poster (see image, top), depicting Jong-un with pig ears and a snout, and condemning the leader for "threatening world peace with ICBMs and nuclear weapons" and "wasting money while his people starve to death."

The Flickr account has since been shuttered, offering only a message that: "This member is no longer active on Flickr."

Anonymous threatened further retaliation, tweeting on the official account that "OpNorthKorea is still to come. Another round of attack on N.Korea will begin soon."

The hackers did not elaborate on how they carried out these most recent attacks. Earlier this month, they wrote in a Pastebin post that, with "a few guys on the ground," they were able to access North Korean Internet via long-distance Wi-Fi repeaters and landlines.